The Imitation Of Jesus Christ

( Originally Published 1913 )

"And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. "—ACTS xi. 26.

THE Bible puts before us, as a matter of fact, the growth and development of a certain type of human character, which we see to be, more or less perfectly, the reflection of the "mind" of Jesus Christ. Making allowance for the infinite variety among men, the various proportions of qualities, virtues, and defects in individuals, and the difficulty of seizing so subtle and often evanescent a thing as character, yet there is no mistaking a definite outline and type, whether we like it or not. There it is, a real connected whole, made up of an aggregate of many, and not all of them constant, features, but governed by certain dominant and deeply fixed principles, which make it what it is, and different from other things of the same order. It is described—still more it acts itself out—in the New Testament. It is not an imagination, but a real thing, new at the time in the world. And with the thing, a new word came into the world, Christian, something derived from the action, or the teaching, or the following of Christ, which had not been known before : an ethical word, denoting a definite combination, qualities not accidentally tied together, but united in an organic and natural connection, like such words as patriotic, states-manlike, philosophic, or words denoting characteristic national tempers, like Jewish or Roman. No one, I suppose, would say that such a definitely marked character did not appear on the face of the New Testament, and did not give its special interest and importance to that portion of human life which it exhibits. In its own time, there can be no overlooking its reality and significance.

Such a character, such an imitation of Jesus Christ has been shown on the stage of the world. Does it also belong to other times, to modern life, or is it only something that we read of in the New Testament, along with ways and fashions that have long since passed away ? This new and singular phenomenon, rising up, as it seemed, out of the earth, amid all the firmly rooted traditions and customs of an age when human institutions seemed to have acquired a solidity unknown before, beneath the majestic and immovable sway of Rome, encompassed by the vast Jewish brotherhood, the competing Oriental religions of Syria, India, Egypt, Phrygia, the philosophical speculations and debates of the Greek schools, the wisdom, the power, the common sense, the mingled loftiness and brutality of the imperial ruling race—this new "way" of thought and life, carrying the " mind " of the Crucified, His heavenliness, His humbleness, His love, to mart and synagogue and judgment seat, to passenger ship and obscure provincial suburb, to palace and gaol and traveller's lodging—this strange convinced seriousness, so out of sympathy with all things round it, could it last ? Or look at it from the inside—this "conversation," " citizen-ship, in heaven," this " seeking, minding the things above, where Christ is sitting at God's right hand ;" this "life, hidden with Christ in God ;" this new key to all things in the world and all things in the human heart, new in phrase as it was new in thought, " the love of God," " Caritas Dei " these overpowering and abiding convictions of the inexpressible wonder and hope of human destiny, ending always in the plainest, homeliest, most direct practical precepts for the pure and honest conduct of life—could this be, except in the fervour of a " first love"?' Could such a view of the facts and conduct of life as is given in the Epistle to the Ephesians, such " high thinking and plain living," from the counsels of the highest heavens, down to the proper temper and duty of a nameless slave—could this be a permanent thing in human experience ? Was this religious character as we see it in the New Testament, and as it undoubtedly existed then, sufficiently robust to endure the wear and tear of ages ? Was it sufficiently deeply rooted, was it in its springs of thought so true and well sustained, in its practical motives so sound and strong, as to face the shocks of unknown, incalculable changes, to withstand the sap and drain of mere novelty ? Could it coalesce with man's inevitable business and occupations and influence them ? Would it be sufficiently free, versatile, liberal, sympathetic, appreciating the world's great interests, associating itself with what was highest and noblest in them, in duty, in industry, in self-devotion, and in public spirit ? Could it adapt itself to the varying ways of East and West, of Greek, or Roman, or German, as well as of Syrian or African ; to the altering necessities, the widening knowledge, the new forces and the new tempers it could meet with, in the passage of human society through time ? Could it do so without losing its very essence and self ? Would it not degenerate and pass into something different at least in substance, even if the same in form ? Was it not so, that the beautiful and noble religious character we see in the Psalms and Prophets passed into the character of the Scribes and Pharisees ? Consider what it was, the leading element of its constitution. It was based on the conviction of the relation of the soul to God, Who had thought nothing too great to do or too dear to spare, to do it good. The communion of the soul with God, Who had so loved it, Who so knew it through and through, Who so guarded and strengthened it, this communion was its breath and its food. And then on this, "the first and great commandment," was raised the whole structure of its moral life—in the consciousness of its weakness and sin, of its distance from its ideal, of its need of forgiveness and peace—in the unflagging effort, in spite of all defeats, to come nearer and nearer to its model and pattern, the example of Jesus Christ. His reality, His purity, His compassion, His self-sacrifice, His strength, His tenderness, His justice, His lowliness—these were all things that men can understand and copy, though so far below their Divine perfectness. So St. Paul tried to copy them, and told his disciples to copy him in this, as he followed Christ. It was a wonderful combination in him. On the one hand, all his deepest and truest affections were really centred on an unseen object—his Master and Redeemer and longed-for Friend and adorable Lord, out of sight. And on the other, in His service and for love of Him, there was all the energy and activity of a most busy, public life, teaching, enlightening, benefiting, his brethren. It was a combination, never seen before, of spiritual with secular virtues —fervent piety, devoutness, reverence, humility, with wide human sympathies, generosity, and strength, and daring ; of severe self-command with impassioned freedom ; of high-strung enthusiasm with profound tenderness, and indefatigable benevolence. It was a strange thing in the world. Could it long outlast its own inevitable failures ? Could it stand the discouragement of continual defeat, ever trying and never able to reach its lofty standard, and in its best efforts always falling short ? Would it have been unnatural for the shrewd observers of the day to ask whether such a combination could be a stable one—whether what to them must have seemed the alliance of an exalted mysticism, the " foolishness" of the Cross, with the heavy and often painful demands of a high morality, could stand the temptations which must meet it on all sides —whether the Christian type was at once stiff enough and elastic enough to meet the storms which awaited it ?

The history of the Christian Church has hardly fulfilled the promise of the New Testament. It has not realised on a large scale the ideal of the New Testament. It has been a very mixed history : on the one hand, great efforts, definite improvement and progress, continuous recovery ; on the other, perplexing disappointment, inconsistency, degeneracy. We have not yet got rid of war ; we still stand face to face with destroying intemperance and shameless vice and the " idolatry " of covetousness. But one thing is certain, the Christian character, which came into being among men from the presence of Jesus Christ, has never died out, has never become out of date.

We have had now the experience of eighteen eventful centuries. They can answer the question whether that character, which is a visible fact in the New Testament, has been strong enough to take its place also among the lasting facts of our condition, " on whom the ends of the world are come "—whether that character is too delicate or too unreal and unsound to stand in the long run the rough usage of time and change. It was sharply enough tested at the outset. What else, of the influences which we can judge of, produced that change which we call the conversion first of the empire, and then of the races who destroyed it ? What, but that passion-ate effort after real righteousness and goodness, living and working in real men, not in one direction only, but all round ; not this or that virtue, but the Christian pattern and spirit, sealed by Christ as a whole ? Separate virtues would go wrong by their exaggeration, the austerity and impetuous fervour of the African Church, the jealous care for the faith of the Greeks, the power of counsel and rule and order in the Italians. What told and what lasted was a whole character above anything local and partial, reflecting, with whatever imperfections, all that was Christ's—His love and His severity, His meekness and lowliness and His lofty strength, His tenderness and His judgment of evil, His communion with the Father, and His untiring interest in the ways and welfare of men. Time and change have not abolished that type of human character, precarious as its hold might have looked, in the world which it came to leaven. Amid the revolutions and disasters of society, amid sins and apostasies to which the rebellions of Israel and Judah seem light, it has had a charmed life—a life, as we Christians believe, fed and sustained by the ever-present, ever-blessed Spirit ; but a life as visible and certain as the life of sense and worldliness. In this "naughty world," amid its jostling crowds, saint to saint, in high places or low, has handed on the sacred light, the sacred fire, the "mind of Christ Jesus." Make what qualifications we will, put contrasts and disappointments as forcibly as possible, there it remains from age to age, reflecting the New Testament image, sometimes more strongly, sometimes more dimly, but never ceasing to reflect it, and ever flashing up from time to time in fuller light and more perfect resemblance ; reflecting it with all those natural differences which give it freedom and truth without impairing its essential features ; reflecting it in all variations of thought and manners, in all sorts and conditions of men, from the king on his throne, an Alfred or St. Louis, statesmen, soldiers, merchants, students of nature and science, down to the lowly maidservant or labourer, whose humble and Christ-like goodness amid pain and sickness so touched and wrought on men round them that the popular love and reverence canonised them and raised them into the guardian saints of their cities.

We cannot, in our few minutes here, bring before our thoughts the spectacle of that communion and fellowship of all the saints in which the " mind of Christ " from age to age repeated itself. But let us take one or two examples. In this wide expanse we may, as people say, sink shafts. Let us for a moment see in one or two instances how, under the most different conditions, and at long distances of time, the great lineaments of the Christian character reappear.

We know what St. Paul thought it, what it was in him. Running up, as to its source and living spring, to the love of his crucified Master—" Who loved me and gave Himself for me "—it was the devotion of a soul which, full to the highest point of tension, of the thought and longing hope of eternal things, was content for the sake of the Master and of those whom the Master loved, with the rudest tasks and humblest duties of earth, with a life of daily self-denial, " daily dying," he calls it, that he might help his brethren, and live a good life, brave, generous, pure, good in the sight of God, and good to men. "For the love of Christ constraineth us," he writes, "because we thus judge, that if One died for all, then were all dead. And that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again." Therefore, he says, " we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him." He likens his life to an offering which he pours forth with gladness for the benefit of his friends. " Yea, if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all." And the practical issue of all this high-raised view of life is the most careful and exact attention to the duties, the rules, the disciplined tempers of ordinary life.

Let us pass by the age of the martyrs, the age of the Fathers, the age of the ascetics, the age of the missionaries—those forgotten saints of forgotten Churches, who went forth for the love of Christ among the barbarian settlers in France, in Germany, in Switzerland, to convert them and to teach them the arts of civil life, and whose memory is preserved, as far as most of us have ever heard anything of them, only in the name of some town on a Swiss lake or German river, some mountain pass, or obscure village, or secularised monastery. Let us come down to a time somewhere about half-way between St. Paul's days and our own. Let us take as instances of what was to be seen then, what belongs to those days, a man, and a book. Let us take a man who, strangely different and in some ways even repellent to us, yet commands the interest of all who look into his history,. so heroic was he, so simple, so pure and deep in his charity for men—St. Francis of Assisi—who, when all round him was sunk in worldliness and selfishness, rose up and with princely heart, as the great poet says, claimed as his spouse the poverty of Jesus Christ ; whose love, kindled by the love of the Crucified, overflowed over the souls of men, to all that the Crucified had made, beasts of the fields and birds of the air—in his "Song of the Creatures," with his unresting fancy fired by that love, claiming kinship and brotherhood with all things created—the sun, the moon, the wind, the fire, even with " sister Death " : who, giving up all for Christ, set himself as the business of his life to share and understand the lot of the poor, the weak, the wretched ; to dignify their condition, to comfort them with his boundless sympathy. With all that was of the time and local, with all that was mistaken and ignorant and superstitious, with all that was extravagant and grotesque, in spite of all the wild things said of him by foolish or selfish disciples, there was the reality of a life devoted to Christ :

" Go," was his word to his companions, " Go, proclaim peace to men ; preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Be patient in tribulation, watchful in prayer, strong in labour, moderate in speech, grave in conversation, thankful for benefits." "They were not to shut themselves up," says his recent English biographer, " or to care first for their own salvation." "He had thought little of himself, even of his soul to be saved, all his life. The trouble on his mind had been what to do—how sufficiently to work for God and to help men. . . . For himself and for his brethren, he desired active service and living influence on men. He was out of the world, and yet he would not be taken out of the world."

Would not St. Paul have hailed him as Mrs. Oliphant, Francis of Assisi, pp. 63, 67.

Indeed " like-minded " ? Here, half-way down the centuries, "the mind of Christ" is realised in a man; again, it speaks in different and yet not discordant tones, in a book which was also characteristic of its time the Imitation of Christ. No one, though we are familiar with the name of Thomas â Kempis, knows for certain its origin and author : it springs forth out of the depths of the heart, no one can tell exactly whence, and by degrees takes its last and present shape. And, except the New Testament, no book of religious thought has been used so widely or so long :—" 2,000 Latin editions, 1,000 French ; sixty French translations, thirty Italian," 1 a considerable number of English ones ; and we are retranslating still. Among its translators and editors have been such different men as Corneille, Wesley, Lamennais. No book of human composition has been the companion of so many serious hours, has been so prized in widely differing religious communions, has nerved and comforted so many and such different minds—preacher and soldier and solitary thinker Christian or even, it may be, one unable to believe. And what is its secret ? Is it not that it has been found to be a true and deep commentary on its own opening words :

"He that followeth Me walketh not in darkness," saith the Lord. These are the words of Christ, by which we are taught that we must copy His life and His ways, if we would be really enlightened, and delivered from all blindness of heart. Let it, then, be our chief study to meditate on the life of Jesus Christ. The teaching of Jesus Christ excels all the teachings of the saints ; and whosoever hath His Spirit shall find there the "hidden manna." But whoever would fully and in his heart understand the words of Christ must try to conform his whole life to Christ's pattern. . . . Verily, deep words make not the saint or the righteous man ; but a good life makes a man dear to God. . . . On two wings is a man lifted up above earthly things : on simplicity and on purity ; simplicity in purpose, purity in affection. Simplicity has God for its end, purity takes hold of Him and tastes Him. No good action will ever perplex you, if you be free within from unregulated affection ; if you mean and seek nothing but God's good pleasure and the good of your neighbour you shall have the delight of perfect liberty. If thine heart were right, then would every creature be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy teaching ; there is no creature so small and mean but can image forth the goodness of God. If thou art good and pure within, then shouldest thou see all things without perplexity and well take them in. The pure heart penetrates heaven and hell. . . . If there is joy in the world, surely it belongs to the man of pure heart. . . . Jesus hath now many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His cross. . . . Many follow Jesus to the Breaking of the Bread, but few to the drinking of the Cup of the Passion. . . . But there is no salvation of the soul, nor hope of everlasting life but in the Cross. Take up, therefore, thy cross and follow Jesus. He went before, bearing His Cross, that thou mightest also bear thy cross and desire to die with Him. . . . Go where thou wilt, seek whatsoever thou wilt, thou shalt not find a higher way above, nor a safer way below, than the way of the Holy Cross. . . . Set thyself, therefore, as a good and faithful servant of Christ to bear manfully the Cross of thy Lord, crucified for thee of His love. . When thou hast reached to this, that trouble is sweet to thee for Christ's sake, then believe that it is well with thee i for then thou hast found paradise on earth. . . . If there had been anything better and more available for man's salvation than to suffer, surely Christ would have shown it by word or example.

Had not the writer caught what St. Paul meant when he said, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of Jesus Christ our Lord"? The tradition was not lost of what he conceived of one great side, at least, of the Christian character, of the image of the " mind of Christ."

Then, once more, let us come down to times more like our own ; to a teacher whose name and words are familiar to us Englishmen—a life, lived under conditions not so very different from our own in our own land, thinking our thoughts and speaking our mother tongue. Bishop Thomas Wilson is a great name in modern religious history. Even fifty years ago his books were favourite devotional reading with religious people ; but he belongs to the days of grave piety and subdued enthusiasm, and distrust of all that is showy, or venturesome, or romantic in religion. There is nothing in him but what is plain, direct, homely, for the most part prosaic; all is sober, unstrained, rational, severely chastened in style and language. But with all this difference of dress and out-ward aspect, all the differences of customary phrase and habitual associations, that special religious character which first appears in the New Testament shows itself in him and his writings in undiminished strength:

" True devotion," he begins his Sacra Privata, "consists in having our hearts always devoted to God, as the sole fountain of all happiness ; and Who is ready to hear and to help His otherwise helpless, miserable creatures. It is to be obtained—. By earnest prayer—` He that hungers after righteousness shall certainly be filled ;' 2. By possessing our hearts with a deep sense of our own misery and want and danger : this is the grace of humility ; 3. By considering God's goodness, power, and readiness to help us : this is called faith in God ; 4. By convincing our hearts of the vanity of everything else to afford us any real comfort or help : this is to be effected by self-denial. . . . In order to dispose our hearts to devotion, the active life is to be preferred to the contemplative. To be doing good to man-kind disposes the soul most powerfully to devotion."

And this religion, sober and understated as it is, flows from the love of the Crucified :

"O Jesus, the only refuge of sinners, does the world know what it is to die in sin?" . . . "I acknowledge, O Jesus, the almighty power of Thy grace, to heal all the disorders of my soul. . . . O Jesus, give me an inward disposition to holiness, a humble and contrite heart, a dependence on the will of God, an acknowledgment of His goodness, and a zeal for His glory; to which all the ordinances of the law and Gospel should lead us.... Where shall we take our pattern but from Thee? O Thou fountain and pattern of love, grant that I may love Thee above all things, and my neighbour as myself."

Was not this to understand, to realise, to fulfil the " mind of Christ " ? As he wrote so he lived, simply, resolutely, with single and dauntless heart ; "a burning and shining light "—" burning, indeed, and shining," as has been said, "like the Baptist in an evil time, he seemed as if a beacon lighted on his small island, to show what his Lord and Saviour could do in spite of man, how He could at will make for Himself a dwelling-place upon the waves and a garden in the barren sea."

What is it that gives to these examples their typical character? If human words can express a dominant idea, a settled purpose and fixed habit of mind, definite ways of thinking and principles of action, a permanent mode of viewing all things round, these words do. They reveal a character ; a solid substantial thing, spontaneous, energetic, well marked. They breathe the very soul of reality—they come from all that the man is, and wills. What is it that makes the likeness among them, in spite of the widest differences? What is that one note that sounds through them all, one and the same in different parts of the scale and on different instruments? What was it that all these men felt so deeply in common, though so far apart in time and all circumstances of customs and language and place —Paul, the wandering tent-maker, the Jewish Rabbi, the Apostle, who had seen the ascended Lord, and heard His voice ; Francis, with his wild imagination, his playfulness and extravagance, and the rope girdle round his rough frock ; Bishop Wilson, with the stiff fashions and straitlaced decorum, and formal reserved dryness of the last century ? What was it that exalted that which was the ruling and shaping power of their real inner self, above all that was best and greatest in what we have seen to be the preparatory stages of the discipline of character—the faith of Abraham, the sternness of the law, the joy and penitence of the Psalms, the deep moral convictions and vivid insight of the Prophets, the sanctity of John the Baptist, much more the stately and lofty ethics, the moral seriousness of Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius? It is expressed in the words of our Lord Himself, " God so loved the world " —in the words of His Apostle—" Who loved me and gave Himself for me." It was that new, and yet old "commandment," new in time, older than the worlds—the love of God in Jesus Christ—Caritas .Dei—man dear to God, God in Jesus Christ the Crucified, dear, most dear to man, his hope, his refuge, his most precious possession—the love of such a one as God is, to man whose heart can answer to it. It was this sense of the wondrous bond between God and the soul of man, such as it had longed for and never found till now. It was the tenderness spread through the whole character, by the " love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, given unto us," and yet strengthening its strength, nerving its earnestness, enforcing duty, widening its sympathies and sense of brotherhood, refining its manliness—nay, guarding and sharpening the keenness of its severity. As long as men believe in Christ this will last : it will not last longer. But the strong, tenacious fibre of Christian character has not yet failed. The serious love of the unseen Christ, a great sentiment, and the highest of all affections, raised to the power of a master principle of life, has not yet died out. It still wields its power over the wills of men. By God's mercy, God be thanked, it has yet great things to do. It has asked and received the sacrifice of richly equipped and noble lives ; it still asks and receives the sacrifice of lives that might have been spent amid all that modern life can most innocently give, to the hard and distasteful tasks for which modern life also so urgently calls ; it may be, that last sacrifice that man can offer —" greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." This—this "charity that never shall fail "—this is the finish and crown of the religious character, as it was new-created in Christ, as it can be on earth. This, while we are here in the flesh, is to have the " mind of Christ."